Bukit Timah Turf City history begins with Singapore’s second racecourse, which operated here from 1933 to 1999. The site later accommodated lifestyle and recreational uses. Today, it is the subject of plans for a new housing estate, with heritage and nature intended to remain part of its identity.
If you are searching for Turf City, the old Bukit Timah racecourse or the Grandstand, keep those periods separate. A historic race venue, an interim recreation destination and a future neighbourhood are different chapters at the same broad site. An older restaurant or sports listing should not be used as proof that a business still operates there.
This guide explains the move from Farrer Park, the racecourse years and the transition towards housing. URA’s planning page, updated on 7 May 2026, presents future amenities and connections as plans; it is not a guide to a completed estate.
Choose your reading route
Follow the racecourse history · Understand the transition · Read the future plans
1. Why the racecourse moved to Bukit Timah
NLB’s Farrer Park history records that the Turf Club decided in 1927 that its original racecourse was too old and small. Expanding city development limited opportunities to enlarge it. The club sold its former site in 1929, purchased part of Bukit Timah Rubber Estate and moved to the new racecourse on 15 April 1933. Read NLB’s Farrer Park account.
This is a useful example of one place’s history connecting to another. Bukit Timah’s racing chapter did not start from nothing: it followed an earlier venue and a decision about space.
Keep the names straight when looking at archives. A photograph labelled “old racecourse” may show the Farrer Park site rather than Bukit Timah. The date, caption and location need to be read together.
2. The new course was an entire working complex
NHB records that the Bukit Timah development involved clearing rubber trees and reshaping land for tracks, stables, a grandstand and supporting facilities. Swan & Maclaren designed the racecourse. Explore NHB’s Bukit Timah Heritage Trail booklet.
A racecourse was much more than the oval where spectators watched horses run. Training, caring for horses, preparing the grounds and managing crowds all required space and work.
That makes an aerial photograph particularly helpful. Identify the track first, then look for the buildings and connections around it. You begin to see why the venue occupied a substantial landscape rather than a single sports building.
For students, the useful question is: what has to happen before an event becomes visible to an audience? The answer brings workers and preparation into a story often remembered through the grandstand alone.
3. War interrupted the sporting story
NHB describes the site’s takeover by the British military in October 1941 for use as a convalescent hospital. During the Japanese Occupation it was used as a prisoner-of-war camp, while food crops were grown on open ground. The course reopened after restoration in November 1947.
These were profound changes of purpose. A leisure venue became a place connected with military care, captivity and wartime scarcity. This part of the history deserves a measured account.
When comparing images across the period, do not assume that a similar-looking landscape was serving the same people or activity. The buildings and grounds could remain while their use changed sharply.
For the wider wartime context, continue to the Bukit Timah history timeline and the official National Archives accounts of the Former Ford Factory.
4. 1999 and after: racing moved, other uses followed
URA’s May 2024 account states that Singapore Turf Club relocated to Kranji in 1999. It also records that the 176-hectare Turf City site had been largely zoned for residential use since 1998 and was leased for interim lifestyle and recreational uses until the end of 2023. Read URA’s dated account of the transition.
The overlapping dates are important. Long-term planning for housing and temporary use of the land could proceed on different timescales.
Someone remembering a meal, a sports session or a family outing at Turf City may therefore be recalling the interim-use chapter rather than the horse-racing years. Those memories belong to the place too.
The word “interim” does not make people’s experiences unimportant. It describes a land-use arrangement, while a former visitor’s memory describes how that arrangement became part of everyday life.
5. How the old racecourse enters the housing plans
URA’s 2024 announcement described approximately 15,000 to 20,000 public and private homes planned over a long development horizon. It identified 27 buildings and structures for study for retention and repurposing, and proposed a central open space recalling the geometry of the racetracks.
These are planning statements. “Studied for retention” should not be rewritten as “all permanently protected”, and an artist’s impression should not be presented as a photograph of a finished neighbourhood.
A useful idea behind the proposal is that history can be recalled through more than a building. An open space, a route or the shape of a landscape can help people recognise an earlier use.
URA explains that a Heritage Impact Assessment was commissioned to understand the site’s significance and guide mitigation. Its Environmental Impact Assessment information separately addresses ecological conditions and development impacts. The studies ask different questions, even though both inform the same area.
6. What URA’s 2026 page says about the future neighbourhood
The planning page updated in May 2026 lists amenities under study, including retail at the grandstands, food options, parks, sports facilities, a school, healthcare amenities and a bus interchange. It also describes walking, cycling and public-transport connections, with road improvements being studied. See URA’s Bukit Timah Turf City page.
A parent reading this should treat it as a picture of intended neighbourhood life, not a school admissions guide, a shop directory or a confirmed daily journey.
The different pieces would work together: homes need services, services need access, and public spaces need to be usable by the surrounding community. Looking at those relationships makes a large planning document more understandable.
For current travel, use operating transport services and verified access arrangements. The future Turf City MRT Station and proposed amenities should not be inserted into an itinerary as though they are already available.
7. How to enjoy the history now
Begin with a dated aerial photograph and the official history. Sketch the oval and mark one identified building. Compare the historical use with the planning page, keeping completed events and future proposals in separate notes.
If you visit the surrounding neighbourhood, stay on permitted public routes and confirm any venue you intend to enter. The old racecourse footprint is not automatically an open heritage park.
To understand another kind of change, read our Former Bukit Timah Fire Station guide. For working life elsewhere along the corridor, explore Bukit Timah’s industrial history.
The earlier racecourse article provides another reading route. This guide adds the distinction between the sporting site, its interim uses and the future neighbourhood being planned.